children and community service

Time Butterflies When You’re Having Fun

By Claire

Today on this dreamy summer afternoon, after reading the book Wings of Light by Stephen R. Swinburne, Wonderland BookSavers teamed with junior members to create our very own butterflies.

After reading the book, our little siblings were captivated by the descriptive language and beautiful illustrations, all of which contributed to portraying the journey of the little yellow butterflies on their way from the rainforest up to Vermont. This inspired the WBS Junior members to make their own (rather messy) renditions of the art.


To make your own book-inspired butterflies, you will need:

  • Paper
  • Paint( we used blue, yellow and pink)
  • Containers or plates for the paint
  • Paint brushes
  • A surface that you don’t mind messing up( we used cardboard)
  • Glitter( optional)
  • And, most importantly, cute little hands that don’t mind getting messy!

First, paint your hand. Get creative!  We made stripes, hearts, polka dots and swirls using the paint and brushes. Little Wills even stamped his hand on the plate of paint without making a specific pattern. His butterfly turned out to be very abstract!


 Next, stamp your hand on one side of your paper. Be sure to press down hard and try not to move your hand too much, as this helps to keep the design clearer.

  
After stamping your first hand, you can either paint your other hand and stamp it as you did with your first hand, or you can fold the paper in half and press it down to make the same design on both wings. The Wonderland BookSavers experimented with both, and both methods turned out wonderfully.

Once you have completed both wings, use your fingers or the paint brush to make a head, body, and antennas for your little butterfly. To enhance the effect, sprinkle some glitter over your wet paint.

  
  Voila!  Your book-inspired butterflies are finished. Time Butterflies when you’re having fun!

Literally Lunchtime by Maddie

On Tuesday we held a meeting to commemorate the end of an Asian themed selection of books.

IMG_8321For each book or set of books that we read, we choose a project. Wonderland BookSavers is both a book club and a global charity; this project was for our team book club.

inside out and back againLeaving Vietnam coverwater buffalo coverchinese cinderella coverWe read Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai, Leaving Vietnam, by Tuan Ngo, Water Buffalo Days, by Huynh Quang Nhuong and Chinese Cinderella, by Yen Mah. Each of these stories is an autobiographical account of a childhood marked by displacement due to war. These stories are set in different countries, and are from different perspectives. Water Buffalo Days is from a young boy’s point of view. Inside Out and Back Again poetically reflects a young girl’s perspective. Chinese Cinderella narrates a young girl’s life from birth through college, and Leaving Vietnam portrays displacement through a young boy’s eyes. Through these tales we learned of the difficulties children face when the world around them falls apart. They are forced to adapt to extreme challenges and must become adults in entirely foreign circumstances.

One refrain among the four books was the desire of each child to return to “home.” We decided that a fitting activity for this set of books was to investigate what would constitute “home” cooking for these four children. Using the Usborne Children’s World Cookbook, we researched simple and typical Asian food.2632879Our meal included: Egg drop soup, cold sesame noodles, chicken satay, and fried rice.IMG_8052It took us about two hours to cook all the food, then we served our soup, rice, satay, and noodles all at once on a table. We did everything authentically, except eating with chopsticks. We cooked all of the food methodically, following the directions exactly. It was far different from just throwing everything in, and the result was that it was time consuming, but the taste was well worth the wait. It was a very delicious end to our Asian selection in literature.